Celluloid Screams has cemented itself as a major player in the UK horror calendar. Renowned for its strong selection of independent and worldwide horror films, it’s strength lays within the diversity and breadth of features and shorts on offer. This year, the festival organisers have outdone themselves. Not only have they secured their strongest line-up of new genre films to date, we’re also treated to special 40th and 30th anniversary screenings of Suspira (the greatest horror film ever made – I will fight you!) and Hellraiser respectively. Not to mention a special screening of three episodes of Inside No. 9, with creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton on hand to answer any questions.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Spring, Resolution) open up festivities with their new film The Endless. Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Noriko’s Dinner Table) returns with TAG; another crazy journey into his warped mind. Patrick Brice is back with the follow-up to his critically acclaimed Creep and Joe Lynch (Everly) brings us a madcap gorefest with Mayhem. And, of course, the secret film returns. As does the horror exhibition, which is always worth your time between screenings. The closing gala sees Christmas come early in Better Watch Out.
A few of the highlights include:
The Endless – Opening Gala
Two brothers return to the cult they fled from years ago to discover that the group’s beliefs may be saner than they once thought. From the directors of Spring and Resolution.
TAG
Japanese auteur Sion Sono follows up the deliriously entertaining Tokyo Tribe, with Tag, a surreal horror that combines his arthouse aesthetics with equal doses of pro-feminist action fantasy, and the kind of ultra-gory exploitation filmmaking that would make Takashi Miike and Yoshihiro Nishimura proud.
Mitsuko (Reina Triendl) is the sole survivor of a bizarre paranormal incident that kills all of her classmates. Running for her life, Mitsuko seemingly slips into an alternate reality, but death and chaos seems to follow her everywhere. As Mitsuko finds herself in increasingly surreal and violent situations, the true horror behind her nightmare is revealed.
M.F.A.
An art student taps into a rich source of creative inspiration after the accidental slaughter of her rapist. An unlikely vigilante emerges, set out to avenge college girls whose attackers walked free- all the while fuelling a vivid thesis exhibition.
Tragedy Girls
Following two death-obsessed teenage girls who use their online show about real-life tragedies to send their small Midwestern town into a frenzy and cement their legacy as modern horror legends.
Borley Rectory
A blend of rotoscope and digital animation techniques Borley Rectory is essentially an animated documentary, inspired by the haunting that caught the worlds imagination during the late 1920’s. Pitched as ‘an ultrasound of a haunting’ Borley Rectory will be archly old fashioned, black and white, textural and stylised, with a house very much a projection of the personalities within it – and the ghosts manifestations of what may be missing from their lives.
Better Watch Out – Closing Gala
Better Watch Out – On a quiet suburban street tucked within a ‘safe neighbourhood’, a babysitter must defend a twelve-year-old boy from strangers breaking into the house.
The festival takes place at the Showroom Cinema, Sheffield between 20-22 October.
To find out more, and to pick-up your festival pass, visit the Celluloid Screams website now. Individual tickets will be on sale on 22 September.
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